O Rio Open, the main tennis tournament in South America, which will celebrate its tenth edition from February 17 to 25, 2024 at the Jockey Club Brasileiro (RJ), will have, for the fourth time, the emissions de gases de greenhouse effect neutralized from Jirau Hydroelectric Power Plant, whose shareholders are ENGIE (40%), Electrosul (20%), chef (20%) and Mitsui (20%).
The Rio Open partnership with ENGIE Brasil has existed since the company began sponsoring the tournament in 2020. Emissions are neutralized with the use of carbon credits from the production of renewable energy at the Jirau Hydroelectric Plant, which is registered in the Mechanism de Clean Development da ONU.
“Our purpose is to act to accelerate the transition to a carbon-neutral economy through reduced energy consumption and more sustainable solutions, which includes the reduction and neutralization of emissions. Our goal in supporting events like the Rio Open is to ensure that, each year, they become more sustainable”, commented Mauricio Bähr, CEO of ENGIE in Brazil.
Jirau, located on the Madeira River, in Rondônia, is the fourth largest generator de electricity do Brazil in installed capacity and has already used carbon credits to decarbonize other events, such as the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
“We started by decarbonizing the event itself. Then, we decarbonized the movement of athletes and, since last year, the movement of the public has also been calculated. At the beginning, in 2019, we donated around 400 carbon credits and increased to almost 1.500 in 2023. Each credit is equivalent to one ton of CO2”, he stated Edson Silva, president of Jirau Energia.
The event has the Rio Open Green platform, which invests in initiatives to minimize the environmental impact caused and promotes actions to inspire a generation aware of environmental preservation.
“We believe that sport is a powerful platform to mobilize people and take messages to a wide audience. Investing in the environmental and climate pillar is part of our strategy as agents who disseminate the culture of sustainability. We want to mitigate and compensate for the environmental impact of our activities,” he said. Marcia Casz, general director of Rio Open.
Over the three most recent editions of the event, the sustainable initiatives of the Rio Open Green platform neutralized almost 3 thousand tons of CO2 from both the event itself and the movement of spectators, totaling around 60 thousand people per year.
The carbon neutralization campaign related to the movement of fans to the tournament in 2024 has already begun. Through the “Neutraliza Rio Open” website, the public who buys tickets for the competition will be able to neutralize the carbon they will produce on the way to the tournament, whether by plane, car, bus or other means of transport, using Jirau carbon credits Energy.
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